Evan Almighty

Just before sitting down to interview the 19-year-old actress you see on these pages, I watched a video of her having sex. On the Internet. With her boyfriend. Marilyn Manson. Who is 38.

And in the spirit of full disclosure, I’ll admit it’s difficult to get that sort of thing out of your head, especially when there are rumors that the sex—which involves blood, strangulation, and a shrieking orgasm that sounds like something out of Hostel Part II—is real. No matter how high-minded and “it’s her life“ you try to be about it, you just can’t get past how potentially career-damaging this is, especially when the video involves a young actress who has often been heralded as the next Jodie Foster. It’s like, the next Jodie Foster did what? With whom?

And so I’m tempted, as I walk into a Los Angeles hotel and sit down with Evan Rachel Wood, to just scrap all the acting talk and see what she’ll say about Manson. But that would be rude. And unfair. Because she is talented in her own right. And because she has three films out this fall, including Across the Universe, a kind of epic Beatles rock opera in which Wood delivers a breakthrough performance as a young woman caught up in the whirl of the anti–Vietnam War movement. The part is her first go at crossing the divide between child and adult actress, and she does so convincingly. (She even sings her own songs.) “I think it’s some of the most personal acting I’ve ever done,“ Wood says of the role, “because I’m more aware of myself now. Before, I didn’t realize how therapeutic acting was for me—how much of myself I was letting out.“

In Wood’s earlier parts—the self-mutilating Tracy in Thirteen, the sadistic Natalie in Running with Scissors—her teen anxiety and dislocation seemed to come from a deeply familiar place. We talk about this for a while, and she traces it back to her early teenage years: a North Carolina transplant to the San Fernando Valley, the girl who never quite fit in. “I was so shy, painfully shy, for so long,“ she tells me. But all that is behind her now. “For the first time,“ she says, “I really feel like I’m around somebody and in an environment where I can just let go and not worry about being judged.“

That “somebody,“ of course, is Manson. Wood has opened the window. And after a little awkward prodding and an obligatory line from her about “not liking to talk about my personal life,“ we rush in.

I ask about their home life.

“He snores louder than anybody I have ever heard!“ she says. “I think it’s the sweetest thing ever. It actually lulls me to sleep. But he puts Geppetto to shame. It’s literally like [she starts low, like a lion growling, and then pitches higher, like a hound dog with a head cold, before finishing with two forceful exhalations. The snore, by my count, lasts several seconds]. It’s every snore you’ve ever heard, rolled into one.“

This impersonation has the two of us busting up, like, How funny is that—you’re dating Marilyn Manson and he snores like a troll! But then she catches herself. “Manson’s going to kill me,“ she says. When I ask her about the music video—the one with the sex, which Wood explains was not real—this is how the conversation goes:

Me: What inspired it?

Wood: We made it for each other. I just wanted to show that it’s okay to have different, weird ideas about romance. At the end of the video, we’re kissing and it’s raining blood—and for me, that was one of the most romantic moments of my entire life.

Me: Really?

Wood:Honestly. Because that’s how we were feeling at the time: Even though ugliness can be all around you—you can literally be in a thunderstorm of blood—if you look past that, it really is just two people holding on to each other. And you know, the same thing with the sex scene. If you’re going to have a sex scene, that’s what it is. When you’re with someone and you’re in love, that’s usually what happens. It’s not always soft. Sometimes it’s somebody screaming or whatever.…

Me:[blank stare]

Wood: Look, if somebody can watch it and say, “Wow! I feel less weird now!“ then that’s great. Somebody’s got to stand up for the freaks!

We talk like this for almost an hour, me mostly incredulous and Wood mostly exuberant as she says things like: “When we first met, he took me up to the roof to just shoot pellet guns—at nothing! “ And: “People would be surprised at the kind of healthy, loving relationship we have.“ And: “If it doesn’t work out, I would never blame it on the fact that he’s Marilyn Manson.“

By the end of our meeting, I can imagine the story that Wood is telling herself. It’s not exactly what you’d call normal, but it does seem at least somewhat thought-out: Loner teen actress falls for older, shock-rocking lover and develops into that rare creature—the Dark Starlet, the one infamous not for her partying or her time behind bars but for the publicly transgressive nature of her art. And you know what? That doesn’t sound that different from Jodie Foster’s career track after all.

“I’m really just being me and growing up,“ she says. “And I’m sorry if I have blond hair and blue eyes and my boyfriend looks like a vampire. What do you want me to do about it?“

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (effective 1/4/2014) and Privacy Policy (effective 1/4/2014).The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with prior written permission of Condé Nast.